Deep Impact (1998)

Well, look on the bright side. We'll all have high schools named
after us.

I remembered very little about this except that it was Armageddon
(1998) without the jokes (same year!), the one with Morgan Freeman as
the President.

With a rewatch I think it is pretty good, especially the initial SF
plot development done as a political thriller. Written SF has many
examples of this and the rich production values of the film make it
believable.

They consulted experts to try to get the science right, with a little
lee-way. The only detail that bugs me is that in movies whenever a
spacecraft fires its engines it jets away like a skyrocket. Even
Apollo 13 (1995) had that. In space, slow and steady wins the
race. Acceleration is like compound interest; it accumulates.

The space, comet and East Coast catastrophe scenes are well
done. That's another plus for the film: the Earth does not escape
unscathed. When the water recedes the World Trade Center towers are
still there, though leaning.

Human interest anguish in the face of an Extinction Level Event
certainly belongs in this story, but for some reason the second half
of the film goes slack for me, until the final climax. It has good
moments, but also scenes of exploitation tear-jerking.

Parallels with Armageddon (1998): both films have a space station, a
Russian member, drilling on the comet, a stuck drill that causes lots
of problems, a crewman blown into space, and salvation of the Earth at
the very last instant requiring heroic self-sacrifice.

Perhaps you could do a mashup of the two films, where Bruce Willis and
his roughneck oil drillers are the secret B team on the other side of
comet, racing against the same clock. Only Billy Bob Thornton and
Morgan Freeman know the truth...

James Horner score.

Available on Blu-ray with a rather good image. The director and visual
effect supervisor provide a commentary track. They are pretty happy
with it, although Leder sees a lot of things she would adjust, maybe
just through cuts or other edits.